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As the nation reels from the impact of a financial crisis there's another slow-motion disaster on the horizon. Infrastructure in the United States, from the bridges we commute across to the dams we've learned to ignore, is in a state of disrepair. (Click here for details and updates from PM's yearlong "Rebuilding America" investigation.) Roughly one in four bridges is outdated or structurally deficient, and three years after Hurricane Katrina, the poor condition of thousands of levees around the country remains a bureaucratic blind spot. The American Society of Civil Engineers estimates that repairing and maintaining the nation's infrastructure over the next half-decade could cost $1.6 trillion. With the dramatic collapse last year of the I-35W bridge in Minneapolis and the recent, late-summer havoc of Hurricane Ike, the infrastructure crisis in America should be a prominent issue in this election year.

Apparently, it's not. Sens. John McCain and Barack Obama have addressed some of these problems--and even offered a few potential fixes--but as the presidential debates loom, infrastructure has yet to take center stage in either campaign. When it comes to the fundamentals of the nation--the roadways, power grids and floodwalls--here is what the candidates have promised and, maybe just as important, what they haven't bothered to mention.

Electrical Grid

Both McCain and Obama have expressed an interest in an upgraded national power grid, with the ability to accommodate an influx of plug-in electric vehicles. The candidates also agree on the need for increased production of electricity, including a major bid for clean coal--McCain plans to spend $2 billion per year until 2024 on related research, and Obama wants to develop five commercial-scale coal power plants that incorporate carbon sequestration technology.

Backing clean coal and the seemingly inevitable tide of plug-in hybrids aren't exactly unique political choices, which might help explain the policy overlap. But drilling into the specifics of each campaign's energy infrastructure plans, the differences are clear. On the topic of electricity generation, McCain is making nuclear power a priority, with a stated goal of building 45 new plants by 2030. He hopes to eventually have 100 U.S.-based nuclear power plants to rival the number planned for Russia, India and China combined. Renewable generation sources, such as wind and solar, are generally supported by McCain, but his campaign has yet to lay out a detailed plan.

Obama's proposal for boosting generation is, in many ways, the inverse of McCain's. Additional nuclear power will be considered, but the emphasis is on renewables. Obama's plan calls for renewables to supply 10 percent of the nation's power by 2012, and 25 percent by 2025. To fund that push for wind, solar and other alternative energy sources, Obama proposes investing $150 billion over 10 years.

That $150 billion would also go toward what the campaign's energy policy paper (PDF) calls a "transition to a new digital electricity grid." Analysts and experts have found it difficult thus far to pin down exactly what the policy is calling for--it could mean a "smart grid," a favorite technology of engineers and electricity wonks, with broadband communication and sophisticated software enabling a far nimbler, more efficient, less blackout-prone network. McCain's plans to bolster electrical distribution infrastructure aren't much more precise, with a mention of the need to deploy "SmartMeter technologies." That amounts to replacing analog meters with more precise digital ones, which can be accessed remotely, and provide more kinds of data to utilities and customers. In all likelihood, the digital grid proposed by Obama would include SmartMeter technology. So the candidates have essentially reached another easy agreement, on the need for a more computerized grid. Obama, has attached more proposed funding to that effort. But as is often the case with infrastructure, the proposed funds--and even the proposal itself--could wither away long before any work actually begins.

"Regulations will help, but we also have to ask legislators to pass laws to support the research that can make this happen," James Momoh, the director of Howard University's Center for Energy Systems and Control, said at a Popular Mechanics panel on the future of the grid last year. "We need human intelligence and grid intelligence to converge."

Bridges and Roadways

More than a year after the I-35W bridge fell into the Mississippi River, killing 13 people, the clamor over the condition of America's roadways has, more or less, fallen silent on Capitol Hill. With well over 100,000 bridges still slated for repairs or reconstruction, there is simply not enough money or manpower to eliminate the national backlog. Less than a week after the I-35W collapse, Sen. McCain decried the way funds collected from the gas tax were being redirected to earmarked projects. "Maybe if we'd have done it right," he told a town-hall meeting on the campaign trail, "some of that money would have gone to inspect those bridges, and other bridges around the country."

However, McCain's policy papers don't discuss a plan for fixing the country's existing transportation infrastructure. The Senator has called for a national gas tax holiday, which would limit the already strained federal budget for roadway repair and construction, and in 2005, he voted against the Transportation Equity Act, a bill that provided more than $286 billion for transportation infrastructure.

Obama supports the creation of an independent entity called the National Infrastructure Reinvestment Bank. Over the course of a decade, this bank would invest $60 billion in transportation infrastructure. That funding would be in addition to other federal infrastructure investment or support. However, the bank's funds would also have to be used for projects bolstering rail, air and water transportation.

"It's certainly a good start," says Rae Zimmerman, director of the Institute for Civil Infrastructure Systems at New York University. "Transportation is certainly an important place to start, too, in terms of accidents, global climate change and what drives the economy." The problem, however, is the amount of money being discussed. Infrastructure can be a surprisingly expensive effort--according to Zimmerman, the Environmental Protection Agency has estimated that maintaining the country's clean drinking water between 2000 and 2019 will require $446 billion. (Click here for more on the candidates' water policies.)

Dams and Levees

It's a grim fact that bears repeating: The Army Corps of Engineers has a list of the nation's dams, but no complete record of the thousands of levees around the country. And as Hurricane Katrina proved, even an inventory of levees doesn't guarantee that they're in working order. Both candidates have referenced the devastation of New Orleans in speeches, but McCain has offered no specific plans to help protect that city--or any others--from the inevitable storms to come. Obama's policy paper on rebuilding the Gulf Coast (PDF) promises a "levee and pumping system to protect the city against a 100-year storm by 2011." Eventually, the plan calls for building defenses able to withstand a Category 5 storm. Along with shoring up and enhancing the New Orleans levee system, Obama proposes preserving and restoring the region's wetlands, which act as a natural shock absorber for hurricanes.

However, preparing for the swollen floodwaters of a so-called 100-year storm or the powerful storm surge associated with a Category 5 might be infrastructure overkill. "What we may need to protect against are multiple 50-year storms," Zimmerman says. "The 100-year storms were never really meant to be something you protect against. They were a target for an extreme weather event. It's the more frequent storms that are proving so devastating."

A reinforced New Orleans or larger Gulf Coast region would also mean little to the thousands of Midwesterners who lost crops, homes or both this past spring, due to widespread flooding. Still, for Zimmerman, a plan to better protect New Orleans represents another good start, particularly since McCain's campaign has yet to produce its own flood management plan. "It seems like infrastructure hasn't been front and center in either campaign," says Zimmerman. "It's symbolically very strong for Obama to put an effort into New Orleans, and even to mention the infrastructure bank. It's a positive statement of intent. But there really isn't enough from either campaign, to see whether they have a coherent infrastructure policy."

So while the Obama campaign has devoted more policy papers and overall campaign energy to the issue of infrastructure, the real debate over the future of America--not the people, or the politics, but the physical nation itself--has barely started.

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